has. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give
solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that
some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and
demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position.

The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a
certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be
recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth
while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real
progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a
strong tonic of reasons for action.

One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the
surrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies
in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion
tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad
to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some
such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man
advanced in years."

This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell
of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late
to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort,
closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not
exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price
in time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the
assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that
matters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow
old while knowledge can keep it young.